Between what was filmed and what remained merely as a project lies an essential part of Manoel de Oliveira’s body of work. This new volume in the Casa do Cinema Collection completes the edition of the filmmakers unrealised projects, bringing together scripts, synopses and ideas conceived from the 1950s onwards.

Far from encouraging exercises in retrospective imagination, the films that were never made allow us to view Oliveira’s trajectory as a broader, more continuous and coherent whole than his filmography alone might suggest. Within them, one recognises themes, forms and intuitions that run throughout his entire body of work, opening new perspectives on the films that were completed. By confronting what was filmed with what was only planned, this book sheds light on Oliveira’s deepest convictions and deepens our understanding of what his cinema truly is.

The volume also includes a complete filmography, covering all films made by Manoel de Oliveira, unrealised projects with developed materials, and those for which only a title or intention survives, offering an essential research tool for the study of his work.